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what is the secret to not getting permanently banned from NeoGAF.com?

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CHEEZMO™;39377793 said:
I wonder how many times this has happened to Wooden and his UNO setup.

iI0XYmumh7rGT.gif

Don't even have live. :(
 

Plywood

NeoGAF's smiling token!
So, to give you an idea of how we operate, here is what I could discern of your post history from about 5 minutes of research:

1) I can see you are not listed as a "troublemaker" by any moderator
2) I can see you have been banned 7 times over the last four and a half years by 4 different moderators
3) I can see who has banned you and why (you were most recently banned for reasons categorized as "jerk," with a link to the offending post and an explanation)
4) I can check your IP to see if it matches other names I suspect you of using

I have access to other information, but this easily the most relevant on a consistent basis when determining how to deal with posters. For example, someone identified as a problem poster with significant bans all for bigoted comments is going to be given less leeway if he posts another bigoted comment in the future. Even things I simply suspect are bigoted can get that person in trouble, when other less problematic posters would be able to post the same thing without issue -- context matters. Junior members are also subject to particular intensive moderation.
If it's cool with you, may I know my account standing?
 

KevinCow

Banned
I don't even need to ask, I know I'm probably listed as a troublemaker. :(

Here's what I wonder, if any mod would care to answer: Last time I got banned, I was told the next would be my last. Is that like a permanent probation? If I'm squeaky clean for the next 5 years and then slip up once, is that still gonna be a perma?
 
I just rarely post and it's worked in my favor so far. I never have anything fascinating to say anyway, and if I do, it's usually really not.

My passionate posts I usually end up not posting because once I get to the end of typing it, I realize how silly arguing is.
 

MIMIC

Banned
So, to give you an idea of how we operate, here is what I could discern of your post history from about 5 minutes of research:

1) I can see you are not listed as a "troublemaker" by any moderator
2) I can see you have been banned 7 times over the last four and a half years by 4 different moderators
3) I can see who has banned you and why (you were most recently banned for reasons categorized as "jerk," with a link to the offending post and an explanation)
4) I can check your IP to see if it matches other names I suspect you of using

I have access to other information, but this easily the most relevant on a consistent basis when determining how to deal with posters. For example, someone identified as a problem poster with significant bans all for bigoted comments is going to be given less leeway if he posts another bigoted comment in the future. Even things I simply suspect are bigoted can get that person in trouble, when other less problematic posters would be able to post the same thing without issue -- context matters. Junior members are also subject to particular intensive moderation.

This was really informative.
 

pigeon

Banned
I got 8 months. Now I cringe whenever I feel like making a bad post. It takes the fun out of posting knowing things can be so draconian. To be fair I was trolling a Wii thread, but that's also because I think the Wii is a piece of shit. Dissenting opinions sometimes don't get you very far around here...

This post needs to be saved to link to next time someone wants to know how effective moderation works.
 
Yep I love subscriptions. I just deleted my entire subscription folder since I was not managing it well (at all). It was 809 subs haha, time to start fresh!

I delete any subscription that's not Halo related nor a thread made by me, rare cases aside. I keep the Halo threads because they're about Halo, and I make sure if my threads are updated I stay updated for anyone with questions.
 

MIMIC

Banned
How do the length of bans work? Usually I hear the same things 1 week, 2 weeks, a month etc. Do mods have to choose one or do they just make up a number.

And what's the longest you can get banned for outside of the obvious perma ban?

I was wondering this, too.

I got 8 months. Now I cringe whenever I feel like making a bad post. It takes the fun out of posting knowing things can be so draconian. To be fair I was trolling a Wii thread, but that's also because I think the Wii is a piece of shit. Dissenting opinions sometimes don't get you very far around here...

God DAYUM! lol Makes my ban look like a short stay in the time out corner. I got 3 months once.
 
I find that a pretty good rule of thumb is common sense. I usually just try to be civil and honest with what I'm discussing, and keep my mouth shut when it's necessary. Approach it as if you're in a room full of people. So self censorship, be able to triangulate your position and use common sense, it's really not that complicated.

Although, I have been banned before at other places for pretty much brutally laying into people. But I knew the ban was coming and didn't really care.
 
Here's an example of what I was talking about with subscriptions being a deterrent. There's a thread in the gaming side about the following topic: "What's your weekend gaming schedule?" I know what my reply would be: "I plan on spending the majority of this Saturday playing NMPD HQ in Halo 3: ODST for my Hindsight: ODST write-up." But I'm not going to because that's probably all I'll have to contribute, and I'll have to delete the subscription later or otherwise deal with it popping up with my other subscriptions. And I don't feel like dealing with that.

Yeah, I may be missing out on contributing to discussions like that even when I have something worthwhile to say, but it's probably better safe than sorry.
 

Holy Wars

Banned
Don't make it your goal to become GAFamous. Having character is good, being a character is usually bad.

You were caught on the crossfire of childhood and stardom,
Blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for faraway laughter,
Come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!
 

G-Fex

Member
Here's an example of what I was talking about with subscriptions being a deterrent. There's a thread in the gaming side about the following topic: "What's your weekend gaming schedule?" I know what my reply would be: "I plan on spending the majority of this Saturday playing NMPD HQ in Halo 3: ODST for my Hindsight: ODST write-up." But I'm not going to because that's probably all I'll have to contribute, and I'll have to delete the subscription later or otherwise deal with it popping up with my other subscriptions. And I don't feel like dealing with that.

Yeah, I may be missing out on contributing to discussions like that even when I have something worthwhile to say, but it's probably better safe than sorry.

hmm. I'm kinda the opposite. I don't contribute much. None the less I post almost too much.
 

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
While it no longer holds true, and old one was "Don't piss off Dragona". From my view, she often banned hard and fast at a comment that offended her, and many too a bit of extra precaution when posting in any topic she actually participated in.
 

Holy Wars

Banned
While it no longer holds true, and old one was "Don't piss off Dragona". From my view, she often banned hard and fast at a comment that offended her, and many too a bit of extra precaution when posting in any topic she actually participated in.

How about them women drivers, hey?

Haha, women drivers, ha.
 
Here's a weird or maybe even a dumb question:

Is there some sort of a "word scanner" that the mods use?

let's say someone posts a very offensive word, that is against the TOS. would some sort of an "alarm" go off and pin point a mod to the thread and the post it was typed in?

I ask this, because I use the word "fuck" a lot around here, but of course I use it with great responsibility and never against a fellow GAFer or towards any real person for that matter, I may direct it towards myself for comedic reasons in self-ridicule, ie: "Fuck me!! Why did I pay 15 bucks to see Prometheus in IMAX, the movie sucked!" (NOTE: that was just a random example)

or for simple, light -hearted banter toward a sport team or a movie, TV show I got angry at.
 

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
How about them women drivers, hey?

Haha, women drivers, ha.

No, I meant, like how I made a somewhat poor taste joke in a SMT topic, and got banned for 3 months. It was more of a point that I am surprised there was nothing to stop you from claiming a replacement CD, but my wording was horrible. Got banned for 3 months in less then 10 minutes after the post. I used to collect Video Game Soundtracks, and I got burned the last time Atlus did a recall on a first run item (My Demon's Souls CE Guide, it was a pretty short replacement window), and playing on a CD player was make or break for me. So I simply ordered the replacement CD before buying the game.


Here is the post. Maybe I deserved it, but I don't know:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=20467656&postcount=550


Also, do me, do me Opiate!
 

Mully

Member
I just said to myself, Holy Wars, now there's a good and unbannable poster.

Here are a few things I've learned from GAF:

1. There will always be a Taco Bell thread once a week.

2. A depressed poster will make a thread twice a week.

3. The first page of most threads are just one to five word reactions.

4. No matter how great your post is, no one will care if you join a thread late.

5. Never play the race card.

6. There will always be atleast one "Look at How Cute (Insert Animal Baby) is."

7. Never play Devil's Advocate, there will be one person who misinterprets your post.

8. Don't try too hard.

9. A "Look How Bad/Idiotic/Ignorant This Congressman/Public Official" will be posted once a week.

10. Don't start sexism arguments, everyone will lose.

11. The Dark Knight Rises thread is hysterical.

12. Never troll.

Edit:

My mistake, I meant sexism, not feminism.
 
I think instead of dropping the ban hammer, mods should try to save a person with a PM saying, "chill out, or your walking on a tight rope." It would be cool if posters could access their bans and mod reasoning to see where they went wrong.
 
And what's the longest you can get banned for outside of the obvious perma ban?

I heard EviLore banned someone for an amount of days equivalent to the number of copies Dragon Age 2 sold, but I'm not sure if that was true.

I think instead of dropping the ban hammer, mods should try to save a person with a PM saying, "chill out, or your walking on a tight rope." It would be cool if posters could access their bans and mod reasoning to see where they went wrong.

I kind of like how Something Awful handles it. They hand out bans with a duration of a day or a few hours for small infractions (like all-lowercase posting or posting nothing but reaction images) just to get people to rethink their posting styles without punishing them. You can also see anyone's ban history and just what they were banned for, although I know EviLore said he wouldn't ever want to do that.
 
Here is the post. Maybe I deserved it, but I don't know:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=20467656&postcount=550
No offense Drkirby, but that post you made is a epitome of "encouraging piracy".

People here sometimes forget the definition of what "encouraging" a bad deed is.

Just becasue you found a loop hole in beating the system by doing something sneaky that prevents the seller of said item to charge you for their product or services. The last thing you wanna do is come here and brag about it.

Having said that, sometimes the company that is selling something may fuck up big time and thus there's no harm to take advantage of such thing, a perfect example is the ever so commonly occurring typos you get at your local or online Toys R Us or Future Shop (Canada) flyers.

Sometimes through typing error: They might price something a lot lower than it's worth, in this case there's nothing wrong in bringing this to your fellow GAFers attention in the "Canada gaming deals" thread or similar.

But be really careful about posting something you got for cheap or for free, because you cheated your way to it. If one thing GAF hates is people bragging about their scamming techniques. Just don't do it, it's stupid.
 

Mully

Member
There's been a few really long bans. I'm not too sure but I think Dyack was banned for the amount of Too Human copies sold after the first month the game was released.
 

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
I was once banned for a month to satisfy a bloodthirsty mob, though there were a few who stood up for me. Now I try not to accidentally do anything that might incite a bloodthirsty mob. I probably also have a couple non-ban marks on my record for being kind of a dick.

Generally, don't be a bigot, don't stir shit, and offer something useful or at least personally expressive. If that is your every post, you should be okay.
 

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
No offense Drkirby, but that post you made is a epitome of "encouraging piracy".

People here sometimes forget the definition of what "encouraging" a bad deed is.

Just becasue you found a loop hole in beating the system by doing something sneaky that prevents the seller of said item to charge you for their product or services. The last thing you wanna do is come here and brag about it.

Having said that, sometimes the company that is selling something may fuck up big time and thus there's no harm to take advantage of such thing, a perfect example is the ever so commonly occurring typos you get at your local or online Toys R Us or Future Shop (Canada) flyers.

Yeah, it did come off really dickish, and the ultimate lesson is bragging about less moral things is usually a really bad idea. I would like to point out that the loop hole was check a box, and they emailed the URL for replacement CDs to everyone on the company mailing list. I wanted to start a discussion on how they really need to find a better middle ground for proof of purchase between "Rip off the cover of your guide and hope we don't inform you that we ran out" and "Click box to prove you bought game"


Also, I feel complied to point out that Atlus wasn't paying for the replacement CDs, but the manufacture, because it was a defect on their part.
 
Do people who get banned get IP banned? If they do can they even access the site or is it just a big error code? This has always nagged at me since people act like being banned will keep them from ever seeing Neogaf again.
 

ccbfan

Member
The secret to not getting banned it to never have a discussion unless its a "We all love this discussion" like the movie bloodsport or ice cream.

There's 2 discussion traps that tends to get people banned.

1. Certain people have a much longer leash then everyone else. They can be rude, antagonistic, bigoted, sexist, hypocritical and nothing will happen to them. Most regulars know who they are but many don't. You get into an argument with one of them and its not a fair fight. They're throw bombs and missiles at you while you're using a butter knife. You think oh its OK to upgrade your weapon grade and bam you're banned.

2. If you don't go with the Neogaf hive mind and your opinion is something they can't comprehend as logical so they just assume you're trolling. One example is politics. Neogaf is very liberal so they can't comprehend how many conservative can think a certain way. So the mod just assume that the person is trolling and bam a ban. Even though the mind set may actually be very moderate in U.S politics. I visit both conservative and liberal forums since I'm a college sports fan and its funny seeing the different mind set. One forum's "OMG you so right" is another forums "OMG you can't be this dumb you have to be trolling ban".
 
Also, I feel complied to point out that Atlus wasn't paying for the replacement CDs, but the manufacture, because it was a defect on their part.
Sorry I don't want to argue if what you did was bad or not, I just referenced the link to the post you provided, I have no idea what the full detail of the story is.. it just kinda came off as (what the guy quoted you for..) "dickish."

In more words or less "Hey guys, check it out! they are so dumb, so I screwed them over and got me a free CD!! haha!"

Sometimes you may not even be at fault, but the tone you use, may make you seem to be that way.
 

Timedog

good credit (by proxy)
Does my rap sheet say anything about me being I think permabanned in 2000-2001 for telling a mod (Vennt maybe? Someone with a rainbow in their avatar.) that his banning someone else was a misunderstanding of context (I think it was some word that had 2 meanings)? The poster involved that was banned had Ninja in their name. A year or two and several emails later somehow my account was just erased weirdly (not a server crash that I know of) and I just re-signed up using the same email and username "Briefcasemanx". If it was all a mistake and I need to still be perm'd, that's okay.

Also, are mods allowed to change people's usernames still without letting them know?
 
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